The Motley Fool's What to Do with Your Money Now : Ten Steps to Staying Up in a Down Market [Hardcover]

David Gardner (Author), Tom Gardner (Author)

Book Description

Series: Motley Fool | Publication Date: June 11, 2002

From motley fool cofounders David and Tom Gardner -- bestselling authors of "The Motley Fool's Rule Breakers, Rule Makers" and "The Motley Fool Investment Guide" -- comes this witty, instructive, and indispensable survival manual for hard times.

America is emerging from an unprecedented period of economic turbulence. Life as we knew it -- and became accustomed to in the roaring nineties -- changed in 2001. We witnessed the devaluation of Internet companies, the collapse of the stock market, massive layoffs, recession, and an international war on terrorism, fear and insecurity at home and in the marketplace.

From the Wall Street investment banker to the single working mom, from the Silicon Valley venture capitalist to the Main Street small business owner, from the baby boomer fast approaching retirement to the unemployed twentysomething software engineer, everyone wants to know the same thing: what should I do with my money now?

In their trademark amusing style, David and Tom Gardner answer this critical question and recommend a dozen quick steps readers can take to survive economic uncertainty, secure their personal finances, and sandbag their portfolios. The Gardners offer a snapshot view of the business and money world in early 2002. They take us through the rise and fall of the American markets and economy, offer lessons to act upon now, and provide a look ahead to the future with some timely and perhaps more timeless thoughts on the right perspective to take as an investor and businessperson. Along the way, they address such important issues as:

What should be done about debt in the short term?

Is this the time to snatch up stock market bargains?

Bonds, T-bills, CDs, savings accounts -- does it make sense to be conservative?

Are any mutual funds sure bets?

Why you should believe in America more than ever

No matter what life stage you are in or your level of investing expertise, "The Motley Fool's What to Do with Your Money Now" has important investment advice for you.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Go back in time for a minute, when the Motley Fool's last big investment book was first published in January 1999. The NASDAQ was hovering at around 2300, stocks like Cisco and Microsoft were leading the markets up, and the Motley Fool had four books on Amazon's bestseller lists, including Rule Breakers, Rule Makers, which for that month was listed at No. 3. Since then, the stock market has boomed and crashed, the economy has sunk in and out of recession, and millions of investors (including the Fools) have watched their stock portfolios shrink. In What to Do with Your Money Now, the Gardner brothers draw lessons from the mistakes that lead to the bust and offer a plethora of advice aimed at guiding investors in this more sober economic environment. Much of what they recommend echoes the practical advice offered in their earlier books (e.g., create a financial plan, get out of debt), while other prescriptions offer a truer reflection of the times (e.g., consider CDs, invest in high-dividend stocks as well as bond and index funds). While the events of the last few years have humbled the Fools somewhat, they've lost none of their trademark humor, and fans and newcomers alike should find lots to latch onto in this book. --Harry C. Edwards

From Publishers Weekly

The year 2001 was a rough one by many measures. David and Tom Gardner (founders of the financial Web site Fool.com) address the economic difficulties it brought and what to do about them in The Motley Fool's What to Do with Your Money Now: Thriving in the New Economic Reality. They explore the factors leading up to the economic crunch, emphasizing learning from mistakes, and give specific pointers for what to do now, covering dealing with debt, making a will, refinancing and more. Younger readers unsure about how to handle their money in a recession will surely gain from the Gardners' advice.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (June 11, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743233786
• ISBN-13: 978-0743233781
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.7 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,653,792 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars One thing NOT to do with your money now: Buy this book.., August 3, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Motley Fool's What to Do with Your Money Now: Ten Steps to Staying Up in a Down Market (Paperback)

After owning a couple of the previous works from the Motley Fool (and subsequently throwing them out because the advice is pretty bad) I took a look at the latest edition by borrowing it from someone.

First of all I've always found their advice frustrating. On one hand they kind of half-heartedly recommend passive index investing and then they go about telling you about the latest stock-screening get-rich-quick fad. Toss in a couple dubious stock picks along the way and you have nothing but a mixed message.

I think this book is a pretty shallow attempt for these two to make up for the really bad advice they gave in their other books over the years. They take several chapters explaining away (in hindsight) how wrong they were, but even in this light they fail to embrace proven strategies and instead go about telling you what stocks to own (Starbucks anyone??). Basically this book is trying to convince you that "This time it's different." They are now trying to mend their ways and show that now their advice is worth listening to and all the stuff they said before was wrong and they're very sorry you lost so much of your money using their strategies. And oh, by the way, we still offer for sale this nifty stock investment newsletter and website for a really great price!

I really think the best approach is to concentrate your portfolio on passive index funds compromising various asset classes (domestic, foreign, bonds, real estate) and just rebalancing once a year. This is a very proven strategy that will beat virtually every actively managed portfolio/fund with far less stress (and taxes). Most major pension funds follow an indexing approach for a good reason: It works.

For a much better read try out The Coffeehouse Investor, books by Larry Swedroe, Bogle, and William Bernstein. Send these two jesters back to the circus...

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Little here., September 23, 2005

By 

Christopher L. Del Plato "streamertyer" (Washington Twp. (Morris), NJ United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Motley Fool's What to Do with Your Money Now: Ten Steps to Staying Up in a Down Market (Paperback)

If you're a somewhat experienced investor, don't waste your money. While Gardner has an involving speaking presentation, there isn't much here beyond some superficial financial planning and investing advice, with a little history of the dot com bubble burst and some mea culpa on the Fool's business foibles. One major investing theme in the book seems to be index funds. He repeats over and over that 90% of managed funds do not beat the S&P index. While that may be true, don't tell Bill Miller, Wally Weitz, Will Danhoff, Ron Muhlenkamp, Bruce Berkowitz..... Of course, he also fails to mention that many funds do not invest in anything remotely associated with this large company index, so it's not fair to compare. Gold funds, small cap funds, international funds, sector funds..... While the average person would be better off following this advice in lieu of uninformed, uneducated investing, it's really a lazy investor philosophy. Not to mention that while repeating over and over that the only mutual fund you need is an index fund, the Motley Fool has begun a newsletter called 'Champion Funds'- makes one think they're OK with managed funds, as long as they can get paid to tout them.....

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Inexperienced But Some Gold Nuggets, September 5, 2003

By 

Randy Given (Manchester, CT USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Motley Fool's What to Do with Your Money Now: Thriving in the New Economic Reality (Audio CD)

Although the Motley Fools have shown their inexperience, like some of us knew they would, they have also started maturing. Much of their advice is generic enough to be good and hardly any of their advice is "bad" (like much of their competition). Also, there are some gold nuggets later in the program, so it is worth a listen if you are at any transition points in your life.